Burn
by HJ Watson
Summary: Scene from Season 2, Episode 15, Chain Gang; Josh POV


I try not to hate much in life. Hate is like trust, it starts off small and innocuous and then it grows into something you never wanted but don't know how to get rid of. Most of the time, I let disgust take the place of hate, and agreement take the place of trust. It's safer that way.

Unfortunately, it's the times when I should be the most cautious that it's the easiest to hate. Like right now, with my stomach still spasming from a punch while my arms are strapped to a log with the bare skin of my back exposed to the sun. Hate would be so easy. The people responsible for this are stupid sadistic assholes. But experience from years of dealing with this low form of people allows me to push away the hate and accept the fact that once again I am stuck dealing with assholes. It comes in the job description. So I allow myself to feel a little disgust for the situation and focus on dealing with the present.

Pain I can deal with; as long as my body holds up, it's not serious. I was a little apprehensive when they tore the back of my shirt that I was in for a whipping, which would have meant open wounds and a chance for infection, which would have been a problem. Sunburn is gonna be nasty but I'll still be able to fight.

I tuck my face under my elbow and try to adjust my arms, but they're strapped too tightly. Moving around makes my abused stomach cramp, and I curse under my breath, trying not to let the hate come back. I'm probably going to have to kill them anyway, I remind myself, and hating dead men seems almost as worthless as hating stupid assholes.

They'll be dead men, and I'll be riding out of this crappy town. It'll just be one more memory of how greedy and disgusting humans can be.

When the burning pain starts on my back, I smile into my elbow and let go of my disgust too. Experience has taught me that it's easiest to welcome pain as a balance to past pleasure. I wonder what pleasure this pain is balancing out. Maybe last week right before the thunderstorm, when Ringo was excited and the wind had a chill that sent a spark down my neck. I was riding across a plain where I could see for miles, and I watched the thunderstorm build up. It was beautiful.

I stay in that memory for a while, and when I reluctantly pull myself back to the present, the pain is worse. _Maybe you shouldn't be thinking about pleasure that was cool and wet,_ I chide ruefully at myself. So I think about that girl in Santa Fe last month. How she smirked at me across the room with black eyes. Dangerous eyes. Like she was scheming to fuck me or kill me or maybe both. The way she had calmly taken a sawed-off shotgun out of a holster strapped to her leg beneath her skirt and told me that hers shot straighter than mine...that girl was incredible. We laid our guns on the floor together while we hit the cheap hotel bed, and it wasn't pain I felt when her fingernails dug into my back.

But it's pain I feel now.

I arch my back now like I did then, but there's no further comparison.

I exhale against the log and wonder how much time has passed. Wonder if the sunburn will scar. Remember how the girl in Santa Fe kissed each scar she found on my body, then let me find each of hers. I had more, unsurprising, but she had faded whip marks down her legs. Abusive father, I'd guessed. She wouldn't let anyone do that to her as an adult, not with those dangerous eyes and that gun.

Although I'm an adult with a gun too, and look at the position I'm in right now.

I let a smirk cross my face. She probably would smile at this too. She smiled when I asked if she was staying in Santa Fe. She was still smiling when she told me she'd never stay in one place, not when there was so much world to see, and for one second I thought I saw a future for us and I smiled too. And then she picked up her gun and left, kissing me hard before she went out the door.

Because she knew. Love is like hate and trust. It's not safe.

I'm still thinking about her when a booted foot digs into my tortured back and I nearly pass out from the heat and pain. I'm struggling to keep myself conscious when the belt is yanked off my arms and I'm hoisted onto my feet.

Then one of the sadistic assholes rakes his fingers across my burn, and for one second I forget that hate is dangerous. Like the one second back in Santa Fe when I forgot love is just as dangerous.

_I will kill you,_ hate makes me vow for a second. Just like love made me vow, in the space of a second, _I will find you and kiss you again. _


End file.
